A’s crush Indians, get two homers from Josh Reddick

Exhibit A came Friday when they thumped the Indians 11-1, the eighth time this season Oakland has won by seven or more runs. For all of those high-scoring games, Josh Reddick hit the team’s very first grand slam of the season – dubbed a “Wham! slam” by several wits on social media – and he added a two-run shot later in the game to give him a career-high six RBIs.

Reddick, who now uses Wham!’s “Careless Whisper” as his walkup music, was spotted playing air saxophone in the dugout after his second homer.

“I was trying to get some guys to jump on board with that,” Reddick said. ‘Maybe we can incorporate it.”

Reddick is a lifetime .382 hitter with four homers and 11 RBIs in eight games at Cleveland. He’s 6 for his past 15 overall with three homers.

“I’m getting pitches to handle and not missing them right now,” Reddick said.

Josh Donaldson clocked a three-run shot off the round digital time display over the concrete porch in left in the second inning, and Jed Lowrie added a solo homer in the fourth. So that was a solo homer, two-run homer, three-run homer and slam for the A’s on Friday, and all on cold evening, the temperatures in the 40s.

Donaldson’s was particularly prodigious.

“I didn’t ever see it come down,” A’s manager Bob Melvin said, adding with a smile, ‘Even (Donaldson) was enamored of that one.”

Donaldson, who can be among the A’s more demonstrative players, said only, “That was probably one of the best ones I’ve hit. …. I felt like I hit it pretty well.”

Oakland has homered in a season-high eight consecutive games, with a total of 17 in that span. The A’s have hit 47 homers overall, and 29 have come with runners on base, most in the majors. They sent 11 men to the plate in the second inning and scored eight runs, their most in an inning this season.

So much offense, and Sonny Gray also turned in his usual outstanding work, allowing one run, a homer by Nick Swisher in the first, in six innings. Gray (5-1) has gone at least six innings and hasn’t given up more than three runs in any of his nine starts this season, adding onto the longest such start to the season in A’s history dating back to at least 1914.

“It was great, they picked me up after the home run in the first,” Gray said of Oakland’s offense. “From there, it was ‘Let’s finish this game out.’ … I felt better and better as the game went on.”

Gray went and tossed the ball in foul territory to stay warm during the long top of the second. “You to stay loose and in the game, it’s definitely a challenge,” he said. “But I’d take innings like that any time.”

Gray’s mom, Cindy, and his stepdad, Barry Craig, were on hand for the game after driving from Nashville along with Gray’s uncle, Ralph.

With the A’s racking up runs and Gray refusing to allow them, Oakland’s major-league leading best run differential improved to 81, 206 runs scored and 135 allowed. Going into Friday, the Rockies had the second-best differential, at 50.

“For whatever reason, we’ve had some games where we put it out of reach in a hurry,” Melvin said. “It’s pretty impressive. We do have a deep lineup, but to score that many runs as many times as we have this year is tough to do.”

The way Cleveland starter Zach McAllister began the game, a clobbering didn’t look as if it would be in the cards; he struck out the side on 16 pitches. According to Jordan Bastian of MLB.com, McAllister is the first pitcher in major-league history (since at least 1914) to go no more than two innings and to strike out the side 1-2-3 in the first inning and then give up eight in the second inning.

Donaldson said that McAllister was hitting the corners in the first inning and getting “some pitchers’ strikes,” and in the second, as his pitch count rose – he threw 38 pitches that inning – he started to make more mistakes.

“I feel we have a pretty potent offense, not just with home runs but with guys who can get on base,” said Donaldson, whose 10 homers lead the club. “And we have some guys in the lineup who can leave the yard pretty easily.”

Coco Crisp returned to Oakland’s lineup after missing seven games with a neck strain and he reached base three times, twice via walks and once on an error.

At 26-16, the A’s have their best record after 42 games to start the season since 1990 (30-12).